Riversong (33 page)

The next morning, she awakened when the front door slammed. She heard Tommy throw his keys on the table next to the door where he always tossed them. It was thirty minutes after eight. She turned over, facing away from the door and closed her eyes to feign sleep. The bedroom door creaked and she heard his muffled footsteps move across the wood floors and a small thud on the bureau like he dropped something. Seconds later, she heard the bathroom door swing open and thump on the wall and then the gush and patter of the shower. She turned over and looked into the bathroom. The outline of his body showed through the opaque glass of the shower stall, his hands in his hair, his torso leaning backwards into the water stream. Steam wavered in the open doorway illuminated by the streaming sunlight from the large bedroom window. After a few minutes he turned off the water and his brown hand reached for the towel that hung on the rack next to the shower. She closed her eyes until she smelled his clean skin as he walked by the bed. She stirred, to let him know she was awake and opened one eye. He had the towel wrapped around his waist, hair sticking out in every direction, a day's growth of stubble on his face.

He sat on the side of the bed and touched her hair. “Did I wake you?”

She stared at the wall behind his torso, trying not to purr like a cat with his touch upon her hair. “I heard you in the shower.”

He traced the skin under her eyes with his thumb. “You get enough rest?”

She touched a vein in his forearm. He looked into her eyes and murmured. “Don't do that, unless you want me back in bed.”

She shifted her gaze from his eyes and watched the muscle on the side of his neck twitch. “You have someplace to be?” She pulled closer to him, kissed him on the mouth, slipped her hand under his towel and touched the sinewy muscle of his leg.

“I haven't shaved.”

“I don't care.”

He threw back the covers and got into bed. He looked into her eyes, touching her face with his long fingers. “I won't be late again. I feel terrible I scared you yesterday.”

“It doesn't matter.” She escaped his scorching gaze and looked at the ceiling, the room suddenly airless until he shifted to kiss and lick her neck.

He ran his hands down her body, his touch was familiar now but still possessed the power to move her. His fingers moved between her legs where they tapped and flicked in the same way he plucked the notes from his guitar. No longer shy, she caressed him with freedom, enjoying the feel of his muscular frame in her hands.

He nudged her on her side, his mouth on her shoulder, hands on her hips, round belly protected from his weight as he positioned behind her and their legs entangled like two pairs of scissors. Her mind emptied and she was simmering liquid, unsure of where her flesh began or ended.

His callused fingertips gripped her skin and she quivered, excitement building as he thrust harder into her and she touched his face with the back of her hand. His mouth was next to her ear, his voice hoarse, and his breathing fast. “Te Amo,” he said.

She gritted her teeth and shut her eyes to shut out the light coming through the windows. “Don't say it.”

His voice was low in his throat and his words cracked. “I love you. Why can't I say it?”

She bit the inside of her bottom lip. “Just don't.”

His fingers clutched the insides of her thigh, his wet mouth hot against her shoulder. His energy was frenetic, intense, no longer playful or teasing, his words breathless. “I can't help myself.”

She willed her body to separate from him but the climax was upon her and like something slippery and unconnected, invaded her and she shuddered and cried out, half wail, half scream. Still inside her, he cried out too, a low abrupt gasp, and buried his face in her neck. After several seconds, he pulled away from her onto his back. She stayed on her side, drew her legs up and lay in the fetal position, the sweat from him still wet on her skin, the dampness between her legs warm and ripe. He was stiff beside her and she felt him shiver and cover himself with the blanket. She stared at the sunlight drifting through the spaces in the slats of the shades.

The bed moved and she heard his feet on the floor, the closet door creak open and shut. She turned to see him pull boxer shorts over his lanky legs. Her eyes drank him in until he faced her and she pretended to look at the ceiling.

His voice sounded tired and sad. “You want breakfast?”

“I should shower first.”

“Eggs or oatmeal?”

“Oatmeal.”

Tommy's oatmeal sat in his bowl, untouched. He appeared to be reading the paper but he hadn't turned a page in fifteen minutes. She dropped her spoon into her empty bowl and it clattered in the thick, silent room. “I'm the one that should be angry.”

He turned a page of the paper with a deliberate movement, his mouth a thin line.

She shook the newspaper. “I don't think a person should be hijacked right before an orgasm. It's hardly fair.”

In two paces he was at the kitchen sink. “You're making a joke.” His shoulders sagged and he hung his head over the sink. He pushed on the side of the counter with his hands, as if it took all his strength to hold himself up, his voice resigned. “I can't do this anymore.”

Frigid fear crept of her spine but she used a scathing tone as if his statement was juvenile and needy. “Do what?”

He turned to her and his eyes were glassy with unshed tears. “I can't be in limbo with you anymore.”

“I don't even know what that means.”

“What are you hiding?” She saw he noticed her flinch and his face softened. “What are you so afraid of? We need to talk about the future. The baby's going to be here before you know it and I want to be a part of it.”

She glanced down at the spoon and saw her face reflected in its shallow curved cup, deformed and ridiculous. “I'm not ready.”

“You say that, yet you're here every night.” He picked up the newspaper and threw it across the room. “Stop lying to me. Tell me what you're so afraid of.”

She stood, pushing the chair into the table. In one heated shrieking breath she screamed at him. “You're right. I have a secret and it's something that you could lose your life over if I get you involved.” She stopped and took a deep breath, willing herself to gain control. “I'm trying to protect you.”

He was next to her in one stride and grabbed the tops of her arms in his large hands. “What is it? Tell me the truth, so help me, Lee.”

She bit the words. “You cannot help me, even with all that love for God and your mother and this house that pulls in sunshine.”

“I will do whatever it takes to help you. Do you get that? Anything.”

She stared at his Adam's apple and spoke through tight lips. “Life is not a sentimental three chord song.” She started to shake from her insides. Her teeth chattered and she clamped her mouth shut, pulling away from him.

He inched towards her and put his hands on both of her shoulders. His eyes were dim and red rimmed. “You're running from something or someone. Who is it?”

Her lips trembled and there was a lump in her throat so big she couldn't swallow. “Tommy, I love you. There, I said it. I love you but this is something you need to leave alone.”

He jerked away from her and paced, pressing his eyes with the tips of his fingers. He stopped at the sink, crossed his arms and looked at the ceiling. “See, the thing is - I know you love me. I know you. You think keeping this secret is to somehow spare me from whatever it is. But I can't be with you if you will not tell me the absolute truth about your life.”

“Why are you pushing this? Why can't it just stay the way it is?”

“Because I need to know if you're going to be here in a month, or a year, or ten. Because I don't want to fall in love with the baby too, only to have you leave me.”

She didn't know what to say, except that he was right. The truth was she wasn't free, couldn't be free until she paid DeAngelo.

“This thing that happened between us this morning in bed-.” His voice broke and he looked at the ceiling. He drew in a deep breath, the vein on his forehead popping. “I'm in too deep. I can't go on this way, not knowing where we stand, feeling like you've got one foot out the door all the time, reserving the right to leave.”

She reached for him, took his hands. “I don't want to leave you.”

His eyes filled and he put his hands on her stomach. “Lee, I'm begging you, tell me what it is so I can help you.”

She stared at him, helpless to think of what to say. “No good will come from you knowing the truth. It will put you in danger and I can't risk it. Can't you just trust me?”

He turned from her, sinking into a chair and burying his face in his hands. “You need to go now.”

“Tommy, I-”

His hands still covered his face. “Come back when or if you decide to tell me the truth.”

Her legs shook as she walked to his bedroom to gather her things. She reached for her bag and there on the bureau was a small jewelry box. Unable to stop herself, she opened it. Sitting inside was a diamond engagement ring. She snapped it shut and left it on the bureau. She ran to her car and drove half blind down his dirt driveway. She didn't allow herself to cry until she pulled onto the highway.

A
t home, Lee stumbled to her bedroom. Joshua had left the upstairs windows open but the paint fumes permeated the stuck August air. Lee shivered as if her blood, bones, every organ were slush. She phoned Annie's voicemail and left a message that she was ill and to have John act as host for the next several nights. She pulled on long sweat pants and a sweater and fell into bed, pulling the covers over her head.

She dreamt of her mother, her slender hands moving in a white bowl sprinkled with cobalt blue flowers. Eleanor took a warm cloth from the bowl and laid it gently on Lee's forehead. Her mother's skin was unwrinkled, dewy with youth, her eye's clear, her brown hair in a shiny sheet on her shoulders. Lee's star necklace, Tommy's gift, nestled in the hollow of her mother's neck. She put the cloth back in the bowl and her green eyes, so like Lee's own, were sorrowful. “There's so much you don't know.”

Lee awakened with a start, the feel of her mother on her skin. The windows were wide open and the night's breeze smelled of dust, dry grasses, and the sweet rose of late fading summer. A memory of another dry August night, long forgotten, surfaced.

The August Lee was thirteen was hot, the temperature running up to 108 in the late afternoon for five days in a row. Day after hot day Lee sat on the front porch sketching and making lists, longing for the feel of the water on her scorched skin. With each day of intense heat Eleanor seemed to disappear further inside herself. On the 16
^th
of August Lee awakened around midnight, heart pounding, alarmed from either a dream or sound. The air had cooled slightly but her skin harbored the day's heat. She threw her feet onto the hardwood floor, the fine hairs on her scrawny arms sticking up under her worn cotton nightgown. She tiptoed to her mother's room and peeped through the crack in the door. The bed was empty. She sprinted down the stairs and searched the living room and kitchen. She was not in the house. Lee went to the screen door. Her mother was sprawled across the thirsty grass. The screen door creaked as she opened it and her mother called out, “Come see the stars. They're falling.” She sounded as if she had a mouthful of cotton balls. Fully clothed in a flowered cotton dress with puffy sleeves and a full skirt that seemed a size too large and that Lee had never seen before, she held an half empty bottle of vodka next to her slack and puffy face. Lee looked up at the sky and indeed a meteor shower was in full expression across the Milky Way. Stars dripped across the black sky, brilliant as they took their final journey and disappearing as if they were an imaginative fancy, or nothing more than a memory.

Lee crept to her and rested her fingertips on the pale flaccid skin of her mother's forearm. “Mommy, it's late. Come inside.”

“They were supposed to come home on the 16
^th
of August. Everyone's gone. I'm all alone.”

“Mommy, I'm here.”

“You don't count.”

Stunned, Lee raised her head and stared at her, disoriented for a moment. Then she was above the scene. She saw her mother's emaciated body and unfocused eyes that moved around the night sky as if on fire. Her cheeks were stained with tears and dust, her hair tangled and scattered on the parched grass. A girl, her skinny white arms wrapped around stick legs, a pinched nervous face, leaned over the woman. And she knew her mother was right, she didn't count. She might not even exist, she thought.

Now, she went back to sleep, knowing it was the only relief she would find.

“Lee, wake up.” She opened her eyes to Ellen shaking her. “You sick? I've been calling you for two days.”

Lee rolled over and pulled the cover over her head. “I'm just tired.”

Ellen yanked the covers from the bed. “Have you eaten?”

“I don't know.”

Ellen opened the shades and threw back the covers. “Take a shower. Come down for lunch.”

Lee flopped onto her other side, squinting at the bright light bolting through the window. “I don't want to.”

Ellen stood over her, hands on her hips. “I don't want to have to drag you by the hair, but I will.”